9

In iOS 10, the QuickType menu is a lifesaver whenever the user needs to type a long word and doesn't feel like typing it (and it's also fun to make up silly sentences).

It also randomly suggests Emojis. But finding what to type to make the intended Emoji appear can be quite discouraging. For example if I want to type the "Smiling Face With Horns" there doesn't seem to be a way to QuickType it without having to go in the Emoji Keyboard. See examples below showing attempts at entering "Demon", "Evil" and "Devil":

My questions:

  • Can all the Emojis be called through QuickType without having to go into the Emoji Keyboard?

  • How do I know how what to type to call the right ones?

Monomeeth
  • 63,349
  • 14
  • 147
  • 188
MicroMachine
  • 3,491
  • 12
  • 41
  • 75
  • Have you tried adding the emoji to the text replacement feature of the keyboard settings (General > Keyboard > Text Replacement)? Say (just for example) every time you typed you got as a replacement. Quicktype might pick up on the frequent usage of and offer it up as a suggestion. – Jerry Feb 27 '18 at 20:01
  • Sounds a bit tedious for all the emojis out there! My question is more about whether or not there is a list of which words call up which emojis, if that's how it works – MicroMachine Feb 27 '18 at 20:22

1 Answers1

9

To answer both of your questions:

  1. No, you cannot type all emoji using QuickType. It's currently not possible to quicktype .
  2. See below.

Examples that can be typed:
star struck
Japan
video game controller

Examples that do not adhere to Unicode descriptions:
controller ("trackball" does not work)

You can test most matches on macOS using the Emoji & Symbols popup: cmd+control+Space

Examples that can be typed on macOS (10.13.3), but not iOS (11.2.6):
jockey ("jockey on racing horse")
zany ("zany face")

On macOS the localised keyword data is inside /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreEmoji.framework spread across 4 strings files:

  1. AppleName.strings (descriptive name) [1549 entries in English]
  2. CharacterPicker.strings (for searching) [1505 entries]
  3. FindReplace.strings (for suggestions/predictive) [1060 entries]
  4. Voiceover.strings (for macOS speech) [1764 entries]

Quickly comparing FindReplace.strings with AppleName.strings or any other complete list of Emoji shows that some are missing.

Also, iOS seems to be lagging with regards to its copy of this data.

Matt Sephton
  • 4,830
  • 1
  • 30
  • 51
  • Thanks! Do you have a source for #1? – MicroMachine Feb 28 '18 at 17:00
  • @MicroMachine have expanded my answer to show that iOS is missing some that can be typed on macOS. – Matt Sephton Feb 28 '18 at 17:29
  • @MicroMachine have updated my answer quoting actual data. – Matt Sephton Feb 28 '18 at 18:06
  • 1
    Thanks Matt, great answer! I am trying your dictionary but I'm not sure how. Congrats anyways! – MicroMachine Feb 28 '18 at 18:21
  • @MicroMachine thanks! It was actually quite useful to hunt out this data, as I may use it as the/a source for my Emoji Dictionary. There's another good answer in the methods I used to track it down. ;) – Matt Sephton Mar 01 '18 at 12:02
  • Are there any resources you could share on how either the `.strings` files are composed or how to read / write the `.strings` files in Swift? I'm looking at these files in the Atom text editor and I'm not sure how their formatted to create the map like: : star struck and : Japan – jonobr1 Nov 13 '18 at 18:59
  • @jonobr1 hit me up on twitter or through my website, this isn't the best place for this – Matt Sephton Nov 13 '18 at 21:13